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Two new characters are set to join the cast of ABC’s "Lost" this season. [Entertainment Weekly]:
* Caesar: a dangerous, physical and extremely intelligent male between the ages of 35 and 45. His intentions are unclear, he’s as skillful at charming people as he is at killing them.
* Ilanna: a European female in her late 20s to early 30s who possesses great intelligence, but who’s also dangerous. She’s "alluring and apparently used to getting her own way".

So, the new characters are "dangerous". Everybody involved with the Losties, with the possible exception of Bernard and Rose, is "dangerous" in one way or the other. This is like announcing the new characters are "primates".

Of course, they'll probably introduce new characters. I just don't know how I'd feel if the characters are given large roles. I can deal with something like Abaddon who just popped up every five or six episodes. But with two more seasons left, it seems a bit too late to bring in new characters if they're gonna have meaty roles that'll take away from the core cast's screentime.
Also, the creators have a fairly spotty track record with new characters on this show. Some were cool. Some were awful. And don't forget they introduced a couple of new characters last season who still haven't had anything to do.

Who knows when (and by that I mean time-wise, or even reality-wise) those characters appear? It would be pretty fair to have substantial characters back off the island. It's either that, or stare at Kate in her underwear for an hour...

Come on. We (the fans) never gave Paolo and Nikki a chance to be anything. We didn't like them, made our feelings known and they were killed off. Is that very fair?
Serialized shows do need to continue to introduce new characters, though, to keep the story from getting stale. Every successful series in history has done it. If we give the new people a chance, we might be surprised. Instead it's all instant gratification.

The problem was not the fact that they were new characters - LOST has introduced new characters and had fans embrace them many times. The problem was the way they were introduced. I know the idea was that they'd been there all along but we just never happened to see them, but it just didn't work and they stood out like a sore thumb next to everyone who really had been there all along.

Personal opinion, obviously, but it wasn't Nikki and Paolo didn't work. It's that the audience never gave them a chance to work. The minute new faces appeared and took one or two lines from the vets, everyone started pissing and moaning. What would have happened if these two had been allowed to develop over the season and, presumably, into S4? We don't know.
Would it have been better if they were guest characters instead of regulars, like Rose and Bernard? Probably. Use them as a different perspective every once in a while, but that's not what Cuse and Lindelof chose to do. And really, for me it's one of the very few areas of the show where a mistake might have been made.

I think you're missing the point. The characters themselves weren't the problem. But the way they were introduced - having them suddenly be part of the group as if they'd been part of the cast all along - was just too jarring. It's like they were just forced into an established show and expected to be accepted already. I think that's why the audience didn't give them a chance.
Like I said, "new faces" have been successfully introduced to the cast each year. Some characters have become fan favorites (Ben, Desmond) so just being "the new guys" in itself is not neccessarily a bad thing.